מחקר

The Poppers Ilan

~ J. H. Chajes and Boaz Taub

The Poppers ilan, known as the "Ilan of Adam Kadmon and the Enrobings," represents one of the most influential kabbalistic diagrams in the history of Lurianic visualization. Composed in the seventeenth century by Rabbi Meir Katz Poppers, this ilan became ubiquitous in later Lurianic practice and served as a foundational module in so-called Great Trees produced throughout Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean world until the present day. Great Trees are composite kabbalistic diagrams that combine multiple foundational modules—individual ilanot originally designed by different kabbalists—into comprehensive visualizations of the entire emanatory process (Chajes, The Kabbalistic Tree, 208).

Meir Poppers: The Kabbalist and His Vision

Rabbi Meir Katz Poppers (ca. 1628–1662, active in Krakow and Prague) was not merely a designer of kabbalistic diagrams but a towering figure in the textual transmission of Lurianic teachings. By 1651, he had completed a comprehensive reediting of the entire corpus of Ḥayyim Vital's writings, organizing them under the topical rubrics that became known as the canonical expression of Lurianic Kabbalah: 'Eẓ Ḥayyim (Tree of Life). Like his predecessor Jacob Ẓemaḥ, Poppers took images seriously, regarding graphical visualizations as crucial instruments in resolving disputed questions of Lurianic exegesis that texts alone could not settle. Poppers sought in Vital's visual materials—what he called "the drawn page" (daf ha-ẓiyyur)—a key to one of the most fraught questions in Lurianic interpretation: the precise location on Adam Kadmon from which the nekudim (primordial points of light) emerged.

The Original Ilan: Structure and Components

Poppers' ilan visualizes what kabbalists called the hitlabshuyot (enrobings), a doctrinal core of Lurianic theory and practice. His ilan represents the entire emanatory process from Adam Kadmon down through Arikh Anpin (the Long-Faced One) and Ze'ir Anpin (the Short-Faced One), visualizing how each parẓuf (configuration or persona) of the Divine represents a complete structure of the ten sefirot and how each subsequently "enrobes" or embeds itself within the next lower level of manifestation.

The ilan is characterized by its elegant clarity and pedagogical intent. Unlike many later copies that were embellished decoratively, the ilan that likely preserves Poppers' original presentation employs a relatively austere design featuring diagrammatic elements (circles, lines, and tables) combined with carefully placed Hebrew texts that label and explain each stage of the emanatory process. This simplicity, as Poppers himself noted, made the ilan suitable as both a teaching instrument and as a visual aid for contemplative practice.

Overview of the Ilan

The ilan is composed of a series of diagrams arranged from top to bottom, following the order of emanation, in which higher levels of the Divine are depicted as being successively enrobed within lower ones.

Following its opening caption—Ein Sof (No End, the apophatic term for ultimate Divinity)—the ilan represents the head of Adam Kadmon and the lights emerging from it. Some elements are captioned as the “roots” of later stages of the emanative process. While the upper part of Adam Kadmon’s body — Ḥesed–Gevurah–Ḥazeh (Tiferet) — is presented in a diagram located beneath the head, the lower part of Adam Kadmon’s body is divided into two: “old Neẓaḥ–Hod–Yesod,” which rise to become included within the upper part, and “new Neẓaḥ–Hod–Yesod.” The latter are not depicted on their own but are captioned as part of the ongoing emanatory process as they become enrobed throughout the parẓufim of Aẓilut.

For a guided reading of the head and its emerging lights, watch Reading the Head of Adam Kadmon, an animation following Knorr von Rosenroth’s numbered commentary on the diagram.

The first parẓuf in which Adam Kadmon is enrobed is ‘Atik Yomin (Ancient of Days), which, in this ilan, is divided into ‘Atik (Ancient One) and ‘Atik Yomin, the two being its upper and lower parts respectively. ‘Atik Yomin is referred to here as Malkhut de-Adam Kadmon in relation to the enrobings of Adam Kadmon within it, and as Reisha de-lo ityada (the head that is not known) in relation to its own enrobings within the next diagram — the head of Arikh Anpin.

From this point onward, the ilan is divided, for the most part, into three vertical axes — right, left, and middle. The division begins with the parẓuf of Arikh Anpin (middle), which enrobes within the parẓufim of Abba and Yisrael Saba (Father and Israel the Elder) on the right and Imma and Tevunah (Mother and Comprehension) on the left. Arikh Anpin is represented in detail, with each of its perakim, or sefirotic “limbs” delineated. A close inspection of each exposes inner layers, the enrobings of Atik Yomin and Adam Kadmon; at the same time, we see these same perakim as they enrobe in subsequent parẓufim. On the left axis, additional layers of enrobings can be seen—in ever decreasing resolution—corresponding to the descending stages of Tevunah (First, Second, and Third Tevunah).

Between these higher parẓufim and those relatively lower in Aẓilut, Poppers fashioned a novel diagram to visualize the flow of “mind” (or “consciousness”; moḥin) that descends from above into Ze‘ir Anpin by way of Neẓaḥ–Hod–Yesod of Imma. This diagram he captioned “Pirkei ha-Ẓelem” (limbs of the “image”).

At the end of the ilan appear the lower parẓufim — Ze‘ir Anpin, Leah, Ya‘akov, and Raḥel. Ze‘ir Anpin is the most elaborately depicted, including a full description of each of its organs and sefirot, and their correspondences to the higher parẓufim. Alongside it the parẓufim of Leah, Ya‘akov, and Raḥel are arranged so that their sefirot correspond to the perakim of Ze‘ir Anpin.

The ilan concludes with the word “Jerusalem” placed beneath the ‘Atarah (diadem) of Raḥel, the lowest sefirah of the lowest parẓuf (see also Chajes, The Kabbalistic Tree, 145–147).

Manuscript Witnesses

Only two copies of Poppers' ilan in its earliest form have reached us—a testament to how quickly it was absorbed into composite structures and repackaged for circulation. Both manuscripts, however, differ markedly in their artistic execution.

The National Library of Israel Manuscript

The manuscript (Jerusalem, National Library of Israel, Ms. Heb. 4°9795; previously Tel Aviv, GFCT, MS 028.012.015), dated to approximately 1700 and copied by a scribe of German or Bohemian origin, preserves Poppers' original ilan in its pure form. This manuscript is one of only two known copies that present Poppers' authentic design without absorption into larger composite structures. Executed on a single parchment sheet measuring 560 by 1520 millimeters, the ilan features a symmetrical, tabular design that emphasizes the right, left, and center dimensions of kabbalistic cosmology. The scribe maintained the original's pedagogical simplicity while rendering it with careful attention to the placement of texts and the delineation of the anthropomorphic features of Adam Kadmon, Arikh Anpin, and Ze'ir Anpin. The facial features—particularly the eyes, nose, and ears of Adam Kadmon—are depicted schematically yet with intentional clarity. The manuscript's simple, unornamented style reflects what Poppers himself conceived as the ilan's original pedagogical purpose (Chajes, The Kabbalistic Tree, 140–144, 349).

The Berkeley Manuscript

The Berkeley manuscript (University of California, Berkeley, Magnes Collection, acc. no. 67.1.11.3) is the work of Rabbi Behr Eibeschütz Perlhefter (ca. 1650–ca. 1713), a figure of considerable complexity. Born in Prague, Perlhefter had studied in Altdorf, Bavaria, in the household of the Lutheran Hebraist Johann Christoph Wagenseil, where he likely encountered Christian Hebraism and the intellectual currents that would eventually lead to Christian Knorr von Rosenroth's Kabbala Denudata. He later became involved with the Sabbatean circle of Abraham Rovigo in Modena, where he studied Lurianic Kabbalah under the direct supervision of Moses Zacuto. Despite this intensive training, there is little evidence that Perlhefter achieved genuine mastery of Lurianic doctrine. His copy of the Poppers ilan, however, presents an exquisite visual rendition of the original.

The Hammerschlag Copy (c. 1660)

A third manuscript, now in the National Library of Israel (Ms. Heb. 4°9794; formerly Tel Aviv, GFC, MS 028.011.009), represents a single-column redesign of Poppers' original. This ilan was produced by Nosen Neta Hammerschlag (1624–ca. 1694), an extraordinarily talented scribe, cantor, and visual artist who claimed to have served as "scribe to the four lands of Poland." Hammerschlag's copy exhibits only modest modifications to Poppers' design, yet they are sufficient to distinguish it as a separate textual witness. The absence of Sabbatean allusions in this particular copy—unlike Hammerschlag's later works—suggests that he produced it before his infatuation with Shabtai Ẓevi. At the top of his rotulus, Hammerschlag added the title "With good fortune I will begin" (be-tov gada etḥil), followed by a quotation from Psalms 71:16, lengthy instructions for using the ilan, and polemics against so-called "abusers of secrets." At the bottom of the rotulus, he added three additional kabbalistic diagrams presenting diverse synoptic representations of the World of Emanation. (Chajes, The Kabbalistic Tree, 240-243.)

The Poppers Ilan as a Great Tree Module

Beginning in the late seventeenth century, Poppers' ilan became the most common module (designated as P, Pa, P7, Pr, or Pu depending on its form and extent) incorporated into composite structures called Great Trees. These hybrid ilanot combined Poppers with other foundational modules, most notably the Zacuto-Ẓemaḥ ilan (Z) and, from the early nineteenth century, Knorr's Saruqian ilan (K). The ubiquity of the Poppers module in Great Trees throughout Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean demonstrates that kabbalists had embraced a modular approach to ilan construction. They recognized that Poppers' presentation of Adam Kadmon and the enrobings could be seamlessly combined with complementary visualizations to create more comprehensive diagrams of the emanatory process.

The Anthropomorphic Representations

One of the most distinctive features of the Poppers ilan—and indeed one of its most influential characteristics—is its representation of the divine faces (parẓufim) with unmistakable, albeit schematically rendered, anthropomorphic features. The head of Adam Kadmon, in particular, is depicted with recognizable features: a face typically outlined by a large circle, with the eyes, nose, and ears indicated by smaller circles and lines. The ears, in some copies rendered as gracefully delineated curves, intersect with the eyes at the four and eight o'clock positions of the face, creating a visually coherent image of a human countenance.

This anthropomorphic approach was not universally embraced in the Lurianic tradition. Many kabbalists maintained a strict aniconic ethos, resisting any representation of the Divine that suggested corporeality. Poppers' innovation was thus bold, even if its motivation remains unclear. Yet the success and longevity of his design suggests that many kabbalists found such representations not only permissible but useful. By the mid-eighteenth century, elegant ilanot employing Poppers' anthropomorphic model were being produced throughout Germany and Eastern Europe. Remarkably, kabbalists in the Muslim world—from Morocco to Iraq—adopted and adapted anthropomorphic representation with even greater elaboration, suggesting that the appeal of Poppers' visual strategy transcended cultural and theological boundaries.

The 1864 Printed Edition

For over two hundred years after Poppers' death, Christian Knorr von Rosenroth's engravings in Kabbala Denudata (1677) remained the only printed ilanot in circulation. This changed dramatically in 1864, when two Warsaw brothers-in-law, Efraim Fischel Geliebter and Josef Asher Zelig Weinryb, commissioned the A. Bomberg press in Warsaw to print a paper rotulus consisting of six sheets glued end to end, yielding a three-and-a-half-meter roll.

The printed ilan faithfully reproduced its manuscript source (NLI, Ms. Heb. 4°9799). More significantly, it introduced a preamble that articulated the ilan's purpose and authority:

The Great Tree composed by the rabbi, the kabbalist, the holy lamp, our teacher the rabbi Meir Katz Poppers . . . one of the "cubs" of the AR'I [the acrostic, as a word, means "lion"] . . . [It is] in small signs [simanim ketanim], to know with wisdom, and to be for a memorial. [With it] one will be able to climb the ladder, the top of which reaches heaven, [as it] comprises all of the writings of R. Isaac Luria. And the enlightened will understand.

It must be emphasized that the Great Tree here ascribed in its entirety to Poppers opened with a Saruqian cosmogonic module designed by Knorr (K) before presenting a version of the ilan actually designed by Poppers (P). After that Poppers module, the Zacuto-Ẓemaḥ ilan (Z) followed, before concluding with a visualization of the lower worlds (W).

To secure rabbinic approbation for this unprecedented publication venture, Geliebter and Weinryb approached Rabbi Isaiah Muskat (1783–1868), a venerable Hasidic authority who headed the rabbinic court in the Praga suburb of Warsaw. Muskat, unusually among Hasidic teachers, embraced Lurianic study and practice. His approbation emphasized three points: the attribution to Poppers lent authority; the ilan constituted a visual précis of the entire Lurianic corpus; and it possessed genuine pedagogical utility. Muskat's endorsement was decisive. In his formal statement, he wrote: "One who is expert in its holy words can easily engage in the science of Kabbalah."

Alongside this approbation, the publishers quietly appended promises in small print that the ilan would protect "from any pain or damage" and serve "as a charm to raise children"—thus anticipating, if not creating, a market for ilan amulets in Eastern Europe. This 1864 edition represents the first mechanical reproduction of a Great Tree and remains the most widely distributed printed ilan in Jewish history.

The 1893 Warsaw Edition

In 1893, a new edition of this Great Tree "composed by...Poppers (!)" was published in Warsaw under the editorship of Aryeh Leib Lipkin and Aharon Meir Altshuler. This edition, titled Sefer Ilan ha-Gadol (Book of the Great Tree), departed radically from the 1864 printed ilan. Where the 1864 edition had been a rotulus faithful to its manuscript source (NLI, Ms. Heb. 4°9799), the 1893 edition divided the ilan into thirteen distinct frames in conventional book format. More dramatically, it stripped away nearly all visual elements, converting the ilan into something approaching a text-only artifact. Every diagram was rendered in stark black and white, all decorative elements were eliminated, and the anthropomorphic features that had distinguished earlier versions were reduced to the barest schematic outlines.

This transformation was intentional and reflected the theological commitments of the 1893 editors. A supplementary text distributed with the ilan—the so-called "Announcement and Warning" (Hoda'ah ve-Azharah)—made explicit what the visual reduction implied: that everything in the ilan was to be understood as mashal (allegory or metaphor) and that readers must avoid hagshamah (the corporealization of the Divine) at all costs.

Lipkin's editorial work was sophisticated and often judicious. He recognized that the 1864 edition incorporated multiple modules and drew on a superior manuscript tradition represented by the Kalonymus Kalman ilan, which had come into Altshuler's possession through his grandfather. Lipkin incorporated readings from this manuscript throughout the new edition, significantly improving the textual accuracy of the work. He was also the first to identify an entire section—which he called "another order of ten sefirot"—that had been absent from the 1864 rotulus. This section, which Lipkin incorporated as §9 of the new edition and which he judged "not to have been composed by the author of the rest of the Sefer ha-Ilan," was in fact the Ilan of Expanded Names (N), a distinct module popularized through Knorr's Kabbala Denudata.

Legacy and Significance

The Poppers ilan represents a watershed moment in the visual history of Lurianic Kabbalah. Poppers expanded upon the pedagogical innovations of his predecessor Jacob Ẓemaḥ to produce a visualization that was simultaneously clear, comprehensive, and theologically sophisticated. His willingness to employ anthropomorphic imagery—bold for its time—proved enormously influential.

More broadly, the transformation of the Poppers ilan from a singular pedagogical document into the foundational module of countless Great Trees illustrates a fundamental principle of kabbalistic practice: the modular composition of complex diagrams from reusable components. The modular approach became the norm; later kabbalists and publishers felt perfectly comfortable supplementing, adapting, and recontextualizing the original Poppers design within new composite structures. Yet despite these transformations, the core of Poppers' vision—the elegant visualization of Adam Kadmon's face, the clear delineation of the enrobings, the balance of image and text—remained recognizable and authoritative.

The 1864 and 1893 printed editions, while representing radically different interpretive approaches, both attested to the enduring prestige of the Poppers ilan. Its deployment as an amulet in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, culminating in its distribution as a political party favor in the 2021 Israeli election, demonstrates its continued resonance in Jewish popular piety—a trajectory that would have astonished Poppers himself, yet one that underscores the persistent power of his visual achievement.

References

J. H. Chajes, The Kabbalistic Tree (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2022).

J. H. Chajes and Eliezer Baumgarten, "About Faces: Kabbalistic Visualizations of the Divine Visage in the Gross Family Collection," in Windows on Jewish Worlds: The Gross Family Collection, ed. Emile Schrijver, Falk Wiesemann, and Shalom Sabar (Zutphen, Netherlands: Walburg Pers, 2019): 72–83.

Moshe Hillel, “New Information on the History of R. Meir Poppers, His Works and Writings, and the Publication of His Book Or ha-bahir—A Lurianic Commentary on Sefer ha-bahir” [“ידיעות חדשות לתולדות רבי מאיר פאפרש, חיבוריו וכתביו, ופרסום ספרו ״אור הבהיר״ – פירוש ״ספר הבהיר״ על דרך קבלת האר״י”], in Min ha-genazim 14 (Jerusalem: Ahavat Shalom, 2021): א–צ.

Avinoam J. Stillman, Meir Poppers (1628–1662): A Lurianic Kabbalist in Kraków and Jerusalem (PhD diss., Freie Universität Berlin, 2025).